A New Chapter
It’s been a few years since I posted anything on social media about my books and even longer since I wrote a blog post. I’ve been through a period of uncertainty and despondency and have spent a lot of time working out where to go next with my writing.
Last year I asked for the rights to all my novels to be reverted to me from Bloodhound Books. The reasons were quite complex – and that might be a subject for another post – but I have a lot to be grateful to my former publisher for; it was just was time to do something different.
I’ve pondered the merits of finding a new publisher but, as my books are now a few years old, there has been little enthusiasm from any of the companies that I’ve approached. I’m writing a new series and still hope to have it traditionally published but I finally decided that I’d self-publish my Kate Fletcher series on Amazon Kindle.
Cue huge learning curve!
The first thing I learnt was that I was clueless. I knew nothing about cover design or formatting a novel and I still don’t know much about marketing. However, the writing community hive mind has been invaluable, and I’ve had so much support and advice – especially from Linda Huber (look her up and buy her books!)
Nine months on from leaving Bloodhound I have a series of amazing book covers (thanks Adrijus at Rocking Book Covers), I have formatted and uploaded the manuscript and I’m about to press ‘Publish’ on Closer to Home. That’s terrifying! I know it did well when it was first published, and I know it has excellent reviews but it’s a strange feeling knowing that its fate is now entirely in my hands.
I plan to republish the others over the next few months and I’m also writing the sixth in the series. In some ways it feels like starting again but at least I know that, thanks to Bloodhound, there is an audience for my work and, hopefully, a few diehard fans who’re still waiting for the next instalment.
Closer to Home is available on Amazon Kindle:
